Studio cleaning, transforming unused stacks of paper into book pages.

Tearing up some failed collage books. This one had some good stuff in it that I’ll probably trim down and make into individual framed collages instead.

I really keep meaning to get back into doing sewn book bindings, but I only seem to do collaborative books these days, and I really love the accordion format for collaborations. They are easily expandable and you can do fun things with the images continuing between pages. I also like that you can use both sides of the paper- when you get to the end, you turn the book over and it’s like another whole book! I think I might make some accordions on my own with different contrasting themes to each side of the book, like light/dark, life/death or something.

I’ve already started drawing in this book. It’s an imaginary map, made while sitting in the bathtub, playing with dripping water to make the ink run. I recently saw the Galileo, the Medici, and the Age of Astronomy exhibit at the Franklin Institute, and it was so inspirational! I’m fascinated by that whole era- how human knowledge of the world was expanding at such a rapid rate, but there was still such a sense of the mysterious and wonder at the universe, and art and science were still so entwined. I love the aesthetics of all those old maps and astrological/navigational devices.  (Here are a few of my favorite objects from the exhibit).

The excellent blogs Scoutie Girl and Modish have featured the collaborative collages made by Alison and I in their Collabo feature that focuses on collaborative art! We each answered a set of questions independently of each other, and one set is on each site. Here’s my interview on Scoutie Girl, and Alison’s interview on Modish.

Today I had jury duty. I seem to have a strange knack for being selected for panels that end up not even getting into the courtroom because the defendant decides to take a plea bargain instead of a jury trial. Lots of waiting around, which was actually great since that meant lots of time to read. I finished Jumpa Lahiri’s “Unaccustomed Earth” and got halfway through Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”

Today I went to the school library for the first time since finishing with my MLA, and realized that I had missed it. There’s something fun about going there with a little scrap of paper with call numbers written on it, like a scavenger hunt. All those ideas just sitting and waiting on the shelves. I even like the smell of the library, part linoleum, part musty books…Although part of me loves the idea of electronic books, there is still a stronger part that can’t imagine life without actual paper books. I am grateful for the use of computers to organize/search for those books though! I can’t imagine trying to do research with a card catalogue!